The Devil's Bargain
by madasmonty
Summary: When questions are asked of him he does not deny them, instead he smiles and nods. It is all true, he tells them, every single rumour. More often than not the whispers are true, but sometimes a ridiculous question is asked of him. He agrees all the same. [A chronology of the twenty five years which Dorian Gray spent away.]


**The Devil's Bargain**

* * *

"Ah, here come the Devil's bargain!" Her voice is high with amusement.

He sets the coins down on the table and glares at her from under the brim of his hat. "Don't call me that, Poppy."

"What would you prefer I called you?" Her voice is laced with suggestion and a seductive smile plays on her lipsticked mouth.

"I would prefer that you did not address me at all." Dorian shrugs off his long trench-coat and leans back against the red velvet of the sofa, drawing out a cigarette and a lighter. After a few attempts, the flame catches and he blows rings of smoke expertly, lowering his hand to rest it on his knee.

"For shame, Mr. Gray!" Poppy's voice is shrill and there's a mocking glint in her eye. "You're breaking a poor girl's heart."

His smile is cold and his laugh is bitter and short-lived: "As if you had a heart, Poppy Packman. As if you hadn't sold it to the highest bidder."

"I would sell it only to someone who could take good care of it," she answers. "Not someone like you, you fiend."

Dorian laughs at her and flips out his pack, studying it and then holding it out to her. "You know I would take good care of your heart, I'm good with fragile things."

Her painted lips stretch into a grin and she gratefully accepts the cigarette which he offers her, clasping it between her slender fingers with a kind of artful finesse, and sucks in deep lungfuls of smoke once he's lit it. The stream of smoke which she blows out are tinged with blue - the cigarette is tainted with opium - and they sit in companionable silence.

Half an hour passes.

Dorian is on his third cigarette, choosing a silver-tinted roll-up which he knows contains opium. He's had enough of satisfying the craving for nicotine: he wants to breathe his way into oblivion. But Poppy leans over the table, letting her low-cut tattered dress hang and revealing her ample breasts, her stringy hair dangling down in clumps. "Do you know what people are saying of you in London, Dorian?"

The response is a half-hearted shrug and a long trickle of smoke from his nose. "People always gossip - they do little else. I care not for the whispers about myself, Poppy. Tales about one's self are so dull because they are so exaggerated; it's only the rumours of others that intrigue me."

She shakes her head fiercely. "Ah, but this _will_ intrigue you. Listen, I implore you." She is quiet before continuing: "They say that you sold your soul for your beauty, and that is why, beneath your charm, you are as cold as stone."

"They say I'm charming?" He raises an inquisitive eyebrow and smirks triumphantly.

Poppy frowns. "You miss the importance of my words, Mr. Gray," She chastises.

"On the contrary," Dorian replies, "I think that I have touched on the most important topic you raised."

"But Dorian," She presses in a conspiratorial tone, lowering her eyelids as if she's confiding in him. "They say that you take young girls and drag their names through the muck. They say that you steal virgins away from their fiance's homes and make them impure, only to return them the following night to a life of shame and disgrace."

He laughs callously, throwing his head back and opening his mouth wide. His pearl-white teeth are revealed, glinting in the warm glow of the candles. "Who says such things?"

There's a pause, before: "Celia Radley."

Suddenly, Dorian stops laughing and snaps his head back forwards. He glares at Poppy for a few long moments and takes a slow, deliberate, draw from his cigarette. "Celia Radley was engaged to Thomas Henson, was she not?"

"Yes. Until she disappeared with you at her mother's party, oddly enough. Wasn't she last seen going upstairs, holding your hand?" Neither of them doubt the truth in Poppy's words - she has all the men of high class wrapped around her little finger. Men come for miles to her tavern to experience what she has to offer, but none she converses with the way she talks to Dorian.

He is silent for a few seconds, staring blankly at the flickering candle. "What of it?" He asks, quietly.

"_What of it_? Dorian, you're ruining their lives. They cannot contain the sin of their ways, and nearly every girl this side of Sheffield has broken down in tears at the altar, claiming before God that someone has already had their wicked way with them. And all of these girls have been seen in your presence, no less than twenty four hours before they were to be wed. Now they walk with their heads bowed and they blush upon you entering the room. They shan't get married - for who would marry someone unclean? - and they are destined to live husband-less. That is no way for a respectable woman to live their life."

"_You_ manage, Poppy."

"I'm not respectable and we both know it." She snaps, her eyes suddenly flashing with anger. She pierces him with a furious gaze and her mouth tightens into a thin line. "Dorian, you can come here. You can smoke and gamble away every penny you have. You can take any of the women here, take them as many times as you pay for. You may drink until you reach Hell and drag yourself back with any substance you wish. That's what we're here for -" she smiles mirthlessly, "- But you are taking forbidden flesh. You're touching what's sacred."

"Sacred things are the only things worth touching." Dorian quips back, just as angry. He stands and grinds his cigarette onto the table, watching the tiny wisps of smoke rise from the burn mark on the woodwork. Then he gathers up his coat and hat, pulling them on quickly. He collects his coins from the table and jangles them in between his fingers a few times before pocketing them. "We never _did_ get to the stage worth paying for," He says, snidely.

Poppy shakes her head and sighs, looking at him with what can only be described as a pitying expression. He challenges her with a resentful one - it was not her place to speak out about his actions.

They stand like for a little while longer, staring at one another, before Dorian spins on his heel and storms out, leaving the door swinging madly on its hinges behind him.

"Oh, Dorian Gray," Poppy says softly, to nobody. "What has become of you? The Devil's bargain you are most certainly, for what other man could have lost God as you have done?"

* * *

Dorian sees the woman immediately - her dress is scarlet and ruffled, and he feels in a vivacious mood that night. So he walks up to her, pushes her against the corner of the bar so that she understands what he expects her to endure, and presses his mouth against hers. She tastes faintly of opium and ash, and he can smell the sickly sweet scent of roses. He parts her lips with his tongue and licks the roof of her mouth, running his tongue across her teeth. The opium makes his mouth tingle, and suddenly he painfully aware of his veins throbbing with blood.

He pulls away when he feels her struggling to breathe - her chest rises and falls more erratically, and her breath comes in shorter gasps against his lips. Running his hands down her sides, settling his palms on her hips, he draws her close to him and whispers, her ear only centimeters away from his teeth. "I can pay. The whole night."

He does not mention the rope in his automobile, and the morphine in his jacket pocket.

* * *

The room stinks of cigarettes and cooking flesh, mingling slightly with vomit and alcohol. Dorian leans back against the headboard and inhales deeply, closing his eyes as the smoke fills his synapses. He smiles and opens a single eye, like a crocodile. He looks down at the girl and laughs once, coldly and emptily.

"I wouldn't bother. You aren't going anywhere, sweetheart."

He lowers his cigarette and stubs it out on her, grinding the glowing tip into her shoulder and crushing the cinders against her skin. The grey dust falls onto the bed and he watches it, flicking the used cigarette into the corner.

The action has left a scarlet circle, ringed with black. Her flesh is shiny and raw. Dorian lights another cigarette and chucks the lighter down onto the bed with a flick of his wrist. It bounces on the bed, flashing silver as it catches the dim lamplight, and lands by her ankle. He stares at it, the rope just out of his line of sight, until his vision blurs.

Through the blur, Dorian raises the cigarette and jams it into the back of his hand. He stares down at the wound, ruby red and burning, as it fades. In five seconds - he counts exactly - it is gone. It is as if he never burnt himself.

* * *

The girl is just like all of the others. She is a mess of auburn hair and grey eyes - he feels in a nostalgic mood, and she is similar to his Sybil. That makes him smile. He pushes her up against the mirror, so she is staring into her own dilated pupils and her features are crushed against her own reflection. He forces her head against the glass, gripping her hair so tightly that he pierces the palm of his hand with his nails.

But, of course, the tiny cuts in Dorian's skin fade. They always do.

* * *

She dies kissing him. The knife goes in, smooth as butter, and she cannot separate the kiss from the agony. He tastes her scream as the pain rolls over her like a wave, and he holds her close to him with his free hand as she pulls away from the blade. But he forces it further in, deepening the kiss and gripping her arm tighter.

Dorian lets her fall back onto the bed; her life spent, her mouth open in a silent scream, her hair splayed beneath her. The knife juts out of her stomach almost awkwardly, and the silver of it is glinting brighter than her dead eyes. Her lipstick is smeared, he notices, across her cheek. It looks like a gash, the red of her makeup is even more red than her blood. It seems more real, somehow, than the too-shiny, slick, liquid that's pooling beneath her.

But, when he kisses her again - when he pulls the knife out of her flesh and runs his finger down the blade, gazing blindly as the cut heals immediately - and sucks the blood from his fingers, the lipstick tastes more real too.

If he did not know better, Dorian would think that her life was more in her makeup than her blood.

* * *

This one prays, and Dorian's laughs in her face. She is on her knees - he felt in a playful mood - and her hands are clasped together across her chest. As if she can pray to her God on her knees, without a stitch on, in a brothel. As if He would listen to her: a whore, a prostitute, wanton scum. Doesn't His book say that women who treat their bodies like she has have a one way ticket to Hell?

_"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?"_

* * *

Dorian holds her against the threshold by the throat, crushing and crushing the life out of her. Her eyes roll in her head, and he watches her face turn a fascinating puce colour.

But, suddenly, he lets her go. She collapses to the ground, her legs crumpling beneath her, and is on all fours in an instant. She is crawling away, sobbing and coughing and gasping. Her breaths in coming erratically, in chokes mixed with coughs and gasps.

And Dorian collapses beside her, sobbing with her. But he does not pursue her. Even when she is on her feet, shaky and stumbling, and running away. Even as she screams and cries for help, help help. It will be miles until she find anyone - Dorian made sure that they were alone. This is the back-end of nowhere. There isn't civilization on the horizon, and he has his automobile keys in his trouser pocket. She won't be going anywhere fast.

Through his tears, tracking his face stickily, he watches her. He does not move to stop her. Just this once, he lets one go.

* * *

He stands at the edge of the churchyard. The wind is biting, and even turning his collar up against it doesn't do any good. He can feel the burning of place even from his haven, in the un-consecrated ground. He stands, surrounded by suicides, stillborns and witches, and they all share one thing in common – they can't go onto holy ground. The Lord, if He exists, has forbidden them.

But Dorian has long since abandoned any faith in God. If his body _i__s_ a temple of the Holy Spirit, then it has been pillaged and gutted, and the Spirit has vacated him.

* * *

Dorian's church is any opium den, any bar, any whore house. His holy water is liquor, and it burns with a holy fire as it trickles down his throat. His pathway to Heaven is found in a dark alleyway, in the point of a needle, under the ruffles of dresses. Bartenders, dealers and prostitutes are his confessors – he kneels down at their feet, drug-hazed, drunk, bleeding, and tells them he is hedonism incarnate. He tells them that he is sin, he lives in the Devil's shadow, he is death.

And they laugh, haul him up and lift his chin to face them, looking into his unfocussed eyes. They see a broken man, beaten by life, with empty eyes. He seems to be searching for something in their gaze, craving something, _wanting_ something from them. They all see it, that aching need inside his irises. But they pour him another pint, inject another shot, light another cigarette; his confessors, his priests.

* * *

Dorian Gray, people say in hushed tones, has no fear. He's willing to do anything - he does not care about any consequence. Some even dare suggest that he heals instantly, that no mark can be left on his skin, nor wound inflicted. He is far, far older than he looks. They say he has tasted the exotic wines of Rome, seen the Niagara Falls crashing a million miles down, stood on the front lines of the American Civil War, walked through the streets of Soviet Russia.

* * *

The book burns just as well as any other - its pages curl with embers and turn black with the flames. It is not special; it is not protected because it was His word. The cover is licked by the flames, and they rise to swallow it whole. Through the orange hue of fire, Dorian can see the golden cross emblazoned on its cover. Then, that too is engulfed by the flames. It billows black smoke, rather a lot, considering it was just one book.

The Bible burns just as any other paper does.

* * *

He collapses at the edge of the churchyard and looks at the long path, leading to the wooden double doors of the building. He used to find it unbelievable that a building, a place, could hate him. But now he understands. Because he hates himself too.

* * *

Rumours follow wherever he goes. They whisper that he ruins young virgins just nights before they are to be wed, and then returns them to their husbands with their spirits broken and their bodies ravaged. Girls break down at the altar, declaring before God that they are impure and unclean, that was been someone who had taken them. But they would not dare speak his name, only sob and shake their heads. They had been spoiled, they would cry, and they could not wear white because their souls were black.

Whore houses are littered with the refugees of Dorian Gray's exploits – they all know one another. All it takes is one look into their faces, and they recognise one another. Women ruined by Dorian ar branded with something invisible to everyone, save those who had experienced him. They can't even name it themselves, but they can see it within each other.

No words are ever exchanged, but they all share a common link: they have been destroyed by him. Their family names are dragged through the muck and tarnished forever because of their actions, and they become nameless flesh, in the business of selling one's self for the highest price.

* * *

More scandalous still are the men who blush and hang their heads when he walks into a room, who excuse themselves early from a party when they catch sight of him. But he stops them on their way out, putting a hand on their shoulder and smiling. _Leaving so soon? _And the men stutter and fumble with their words, even as he presses a glass of wine into their hands and leads them by the arm from the room with glittering eyes.

When the men return, hours later, their hair is in disarray and their jackets are crumpled. But when Dorian walks back into the party, his clothes are as pristine as when he left, and his smile is no less bright. He doesn't look at the men, but they flicker glances to him with hungry eyes.

* * *

When questions are asked of him he does not deny them, instead he smiles and nods. It is all true, he tells them, every single rumour. More often than not the whispers _are_ true, but sometimes a ridiculous question is asked of him. He agrees all the same.

It makes for a more enigmatic air, and their words are unintentional suggestions for future exploits. So, when things are asked of him again, it is not be a lie to say that he has committed the actions they think he had. It was in this way that Dorian thrives from fear, drinks deeply of terror and rises on rumours.

* * *

They all taste the same - fear and fury and flesh. They blur into one, and he cannot distinguish between them. All of them fight and cry, and their tears season their skin with loss. A choir of begs ring in his ears as Dorian eats them. Though he never takes a bite, they are not whole once he is through.

True as it is that he doesn't sate himself on their muscle and skin, what beats underneath offers such a tantalizing chance which he simply cannot pass upon. It smothers his hands and drips down his wrists and tracks ruby branches across his forearms. It is warm and wet and wonderful. The first time he drinks it, wanting to have the taste of their death in his mouth and swallow their final moments, Dorian spits it out in a fountain of sticky, red bile.

The second time he is heavily under the influence and floating outside of his body, and yet he's never been more inside himself. He can feel every single one of his pores; pressed against her sweaty body; he can feel his nails digging into the brickwork of the wall behind her; he can feel her hair in his mouth and nostrils and against his cheeks as he inhales. Being a prostitute, her hair is greasy and stringy, and the ash and opium is overwhelming, on his tongue and his sinuses.

And this time, when he splits her flesh open just beneath the back of her hairline, just nicking her deep enough to cause a trickle of blood to run down her spine, it does not look like blood. It looks like the finest red wine, the most delicious foreign alcohol, the sweetest drink. This time, when he runs his tongue up the ridges of her vertebrae, he holds the thick liquid in his mouth for a moment before swallowing. It undoubtedly stains his teeth and smears his lips, so he licks it away gratefully.

The blood tastes like life, like _real_ life, and Dorian is envious of it.

With each drink, he finds that he keeps pieces of them alive. Their lifeblood beats through his veins and twists together, mixing the unique shades of each of them to form a new colour. And, he finds, it is even more beautiful for it. It comforts him to think of them humming through him, inside him, glowing brightly.

* * *

He feels sorry for the people of London – they have been taught that Jesus is their Saviour. But Jesus does not come when they scream, when they cry out in pain. Only Dorian is there to answer their calls, to take them to Heaven's Gate and leave them on the doorstep, bleeding and broken. Where is their God, their absentee Father? Burn for your Faith, he sings, walking from death to death, or do not bother having a Faith at all. Yes, yes, yes, they will burn with their Faith for him.

* * *

He wants them to die with his name on their lips, with his being the last face that they ever see, knowing that he is in them and with them and he ended them. If they are crying for their mother, if they are weeping for their father, if they are praying to their Lord God, Dorian makes them beg to him. He forces their eyes away from the Heavens and into his, locking their gazes together. He pulls their clumsy hands out of their prayerful clutch and pins them to the ground. He stoppers their babbling mouths with a kiss, biting down on their lips and tasting blood.

If that is not enough, he snaps. He watches as their fingers are clicked and their legs are cracked, almost as if he is an innocent bystander in the proceedings. But it is by his hand that their bones are splintered. He runs the pads of his fingertips across their skin, skittering down their arms and tickling gently up their legs, studying them for the perfect place. As their tension mounts and they sob incoherently – they have not yet learnt that all he wants is for them to say his name – he slows to a halt and his hands rest on their forearm, their calf, their fingers. With a wicked smile, Dorian grips their limb and twists ferociously.

* * *

Say. My. Name. His words are thrust at them like knives, short and sharp, accompanied by flying spit and burning gazes. He almost pities them because they don't see – they can't comprehend – in their agony, that He is their God. He holds their life in His hands and He destroys it, inch by shattered inch. Why die saying the name of Christ, when it is Dorian Gray who is breaking you?

But he teaches them before they die, sometimes surrounded by shards of their china-white bones and sometimes in pools of their own blood. Not one of them dies without whispering, choking, gasping, crying, screaming, His name.

* * *

"Dorian, Dorian, Dorian." His name is muttered like a mantra, spilling from the lips of whores and vagrants and gentlemen. He is Death and He does not spare anyone – none are safe from His wrath. If He chooses you, you must go and you must do say saying the Lord's name: Dorian Gray. Just as the inevitable blade of the Eternal Sleep must swing down on us all, so Dorian does not shy away from the rich, the poor, the needy, the sick. What kind of God would He be if He ignored the wealthy, and only chose to end the lives of the destitute?

He sinks them all to their knees before Him, forcing their heads down in confession with the tip of His cane. They all bow before Him, as they should, and their cries become songs of praise to His ears. Their final word – His name – becomes their _amen_.

* * *

Death is not picky about His place of worship – His people may come to their ends in any alleyway, any abandoned warehouse, any bedroom. He sometimes chooses more ironic settings: those with money meet Him in the sewers, and those with nothing meet Him in a bedroom endowed with treasures beyond their wildest dreams. Because He is merciful, He wants to let them see the other side of life before He rips it from them.

It is with this letter opener that they opened invitations to grand Galas and Balls, and, if you stab it just right… There, see? It is very adept at making little girls scream.

This is the pile of bricks which they hid behind to sleep, lest the night watchman catch them and haul them away to the workhouse. A single one of these bricks, when swung, can cause a devastating blow to one's face, often knocking their teeth out. What was that? _I can't hea-ear you._

Sometimes their mouths are full of pieces of tooth and chunks of gum, and their cheeks are swollen as they hold their own blood in their mouths. Dorian has to straddle them and scrape it out, in sticky handfuls of gore, and that is tedious and makes them difficult to understand when they say His name. It isn't often that He smashes their teeth in.

* * *

He is their vicar, their priest, their confessor. He is a Saint and Lucifer and God. Word springs up through the underbelly of London, in the dark corners of bars and the smog-filled opium dens: there is a man who calls himself the Christ incarnate, prowling the streets, looking for a congregation. But the tithes of the congregation, they say in hushed tones, the price of being in his Church, is life itself.

* * *

A black dot is snaking its way towards him, twisting and turning, a rivulet in the ground beneath his feet. His frown deepens as he watches, and still he does not move. The darkness gets closer, bigger, and now the grooves are canyons, widening with every movement, and his still stance is fixed.

* * *

"Why should you get it?" He screams, raising the knife again and again. The sound of breaking flesh, ripping skin, tearing muscle, and the warmth of blood as it sprays into his mouth. "Why should _you_? Why should _you_?"

The knife rises and falls and the woman beneath him changes. Her body is opened and her wounds are deep, gushing scarlet and stinking of metal. Her mouth is slightly parted, long since her final scream has left her lungs, and her lips are still sticky with makeup. Her eyes are dull grey and tinted with a kind of dark light which he cannot understand, staring at something which he cannot see.

When he is finished he licks her blood from his hands, sucking his fingers and running his tongue across his skin. He bites her neck tenderly, kissing the red away from her open veins. He drinks her cherry liquid down, gorging himself on her lifeblood and staining his teeth with it.

Dorian is tasting Death, but he cannot swallow it.

* * *

He sees the dark dot advancing and squints, watching its progress. He wants to know what it is. He wants it to reach him.

* * *

He hums as her holds her hair, breaking the skin of her scalp with his jagged nails. He feels bits of her flesh break away and grimaces in disgust - she's a peasant, so he'll need to wash himself when he's done. How tastefully ironic, he decides, that he will cleanse himself of her in the very freezing waters of the river where she drowned.

The struggling has lessened now, the fight is going out of her, and Dorian's grimace turns into a smile. He loves this part, he adores this part, he _dreams_ of this moment: her fighting is weak, her arms are slowly floating down. There is a stain just beneath the skin of the water and it's her - her white form, pale with death, is simply bobbing. She's now only being held still by Dorian. Death wants her.

He lets her go and watches as she sinks like a stone, to the bottom of the river. He does not blink until she's out of sight, not allowing himself to miss a moment of her descent. When she is utterly gone, too deep for him to see, Dorian takes a deep breath and jumps in after her. He has to cleanse himself, after all, of her disgusting filth.

Sinking down as far he can go, no matter how long Dorian holds his breath for, no matter how low he goes, how much water he inhales, he cannot follow the girl. She has gone to Death, somewhere he will never go.

* * *

All he can do is watch. The ground beneath him trembles as the rushing black substance gets nearer. Now he wants to run. He turns to flee, to get away, but it's too late.

* * *

He shoots the man in the shoulder - it wouldn't have any point if he died instantaneously. Dorian is doing this for the experience of being with him in his final moments, when the man will journey to a place where Dorian will never see. But, it seems, no matter how many times he watches the process it is not enough. It's never enough.

He wants to see it again and again, in a myriad of ways. He wants to see those who beg, those who scream, who are silent, who sob. He wants to stab and shoot and drown and beat them all to their graves. The poor and destitute, grubbing in their vile hovels with the muck and filth of London; they don't deserve any better. Dorian is carrying them to God, they should be _grateful_.

The man staggers against the wall, screaming through his teeth, and Dorian is instantly upon him, smothering his mouth with his palm and whispering soothingly: "Hush now, hush. It's alright. The pain is good."

And it _is_ good – it is so, _so_, good – because this man is braver than most. He collapses against the brickwork and lets his knees fail under his weight. He would fall were Dorian not there to catch him, holding him up and slowly guiding him to the ground.

With a hand still quietening his cries, mingling his spit and tears together, the man looks up at his killer and sees something unbelievable, something insane: he is crying through his smile.

* * *

White collapses below him and he falls, the darkness capturing him and swirling around him, heavy and opaque. He goes under the liquid, but this is denser than water, thicker than blood. It has a poisonous intent that he can hear thundering through his ears.

* * *

The bow tie is pulled tighter and tighter and the man's face is slowly filling up with purple and mottling red. His hands are clawing at Dorian's fingers, grasping to pull him off, but Dorian isn't relenting. He's pulling and crushing and squeezing the life out of him.

The man goes limp and his breathing sounds as if he's got a mouthful of phlegm. He coughs and spasms and, in an instant, the bow has slackened around his throat because they both know it's too late now and he will inevitably die.

Dorian holds his face, rocking him gently back and forth. "_Shh, shh,_" he murmurs. "It will be over in a moment." He strokes the man's cheek and looks down at him, his eyes glowing with jealousy at the other man's as the life leaves them. His pupils go dim and still Dorian is looking at him, rocking him lovingly.

* * *

The smell encompasses him and now he knows what it is.

Paint.

* * *

The portrait stands, propped up, in the attic. Twenty five years have passed and, for some reason, Dorian expects it to have vanished. After all, hasn't _he_ vanished? But there it is, exactly where he had left it all those years ago.

It is unrecognisable - marred with scars and bruises, its innards dripping from its stomach and its teeth foul and rotting. Its arms are tracked with puncture wounds and gashes, weeping pus and open sores. Its hair is grey and thin, dried to its head with blood and hanging across its wrinkled, aged, face.

Dorian stares at his soul and falls to his knees, bowing before it, lowering his head in mocking reverence.

* * *

**The End**


End file.
